Work
for change

Dear
Editor,
Some of us still expect universities to take leadership roles
in improving society. And as the date of the last issue of the
Gazette,
March 9, fell in International Womens Week, we look for
related content.

The
good news is that on Page 8 there is a piece about retaining
women in engineering programs, but this is more than cancelled
out by the last page announcement of a new engineering Advisory
Council made up of 30 names, only one of which is recognizable
to me as feminine. The new council is said to represent a
change of culture which will actively seek new solutions,
and new questions to improve the curriculum, and be beneficial
to the university, the faculty members and especially the students.
Clearly they have neglected to look for the change in culture
by adding a substantial proportion of women to the mix. This
must be very discouraging to women in and aspiring to engineering
and makes it hard for anyone to believe the effort towards retention
of women in engineering are sincere.

Then
we find that your editorial committee was satisfied to publish
a book section where all of the authors showcased are male.

Lastly,
and most seriously, the regular Student View column, titled Riding
out the storm of changing times, begins with a horribly inappropriate
commentary on the murder of Samantha Walsh. The column asserts
that the details of the crime were not particularly appalling
to us. The column urges women to ride out this and
other such crimes in the province. Apparently we women should
deal with these changes by clutching our wallets close to us
and should follow advice such as Make sure that if you
drink, someone trustworthy  and relatively sober 
is there to watch out for you. Shame on the editorial committee
for this, too.

Most
of us, I imagine, are really appalled at this crime and believe
that riding out such events is the same as accepting
them as inevitable, and very wrong. We do have options. We can
register our true feelings at such crimes, rather than denying
them, and we can attempt to understand the dynamics of the crimes
and make moves to reduce their likelihood in the future.

Premier
Tobin is to be congratulated in this regard for excluding Newfoundland
and Labrador from the group of provinces challenging the gun
law, and for his recent funding of the provincial strategy against
violence. Perhaps the Gazette editorial committee
also could work for change.

Dr.
Joan Scott
Biology and Womens Studies

Editors
note: Engineering recognizes that the purpose of the Advisory
Council is to cultivate new perspectives, and that this goal
would be well served by diversity, both in terms of gender and
ethnicity. However, although the Faculty casts a wide net, diversity
is impacted by the fact that the council is comprised of top-level
executives from the local engineering community who serve in
a volunteer capacity on a rotating basis. The faculty hopes that
with the success of initiatives to increase retention, such as
the upcoming New Frontiers, New Traditions conference (for more
on this story click here), the situation will improve.

The
Books at Memorial section features Memorial authors on a first-come,
first-served basis. No women authors presented titles to the
Gazette
for this issue. However there are several books issues each year
and we encourage all authors at Memorial to bring their recent
publications to the Gazette office for future
attention.

The
Student View column is an opinion piece and represents the personal
view of its author. The Gazette encourages opposing
points of view.